Sacred and Profane

Bayfront Park juts into the salt ponds of the San Francisco Bay on the eastern edge of Menlo Park. It's popular with bird watchers, dog walkers, slow runners, model plane flyers, etc. It's a nice spot, but it's all reclaimed land built over a huge trash heap.

The fact that inches below your california native grasses is the sum-total of post-consumer cast-offs is either wonderful (fantastic reclamation and an example of making something beautiful from a dump) or strangely unsettling. I've spoken to several people who don't go to the park 'in principle.' Not that they openly have objections to the park, but their preference suggests that they're not happy with walking across a rubbish tip.

We talk about 'sacred' and 'profane' places/spaces as architects. Is a park over a dump by definition a 'profane' space for many people. Does this go for battlefields? Notorious historic sites? Does the Feng Shui master or the Indian dream-spirit-master-whatever agree? If you attempt to live in the present, live in the moment, then you can take the park as it is, regardless of it's past life.

But if a measure of respect for a place is whether or not dog owners clean up their poop or not, the park still seems to be held in contempt.